Its in the genes..

Meet my younger sister Kiersten (or KK as we like to call her)...

She is also a crazy ADD design brain (she used to work in fashion).

She has a sick and twisted sense of humor which I adore.

She gets bored easily too, so I could always count on her to entertain me.

 Hard at work and experimenting with transgender...

She is one sexy bitch of a man!

My son gets his fabulous stache from her...

So, she now is home with 2 young kids and has recently undergone a liberating moment.

Lets just call it the "Holy shit! I accomplished a project with little kids" moment.

I remember that moment. It happened right around when my youngest was 1 1/2, almost 2.

Suddenly he was walking more upright, not falling down.  Napping for a decent clip. My oldest was able to entertain himself pretty well.  I suddenly had spurts of time to focus on stuff I wanted to focus on. 

Enter projects around the house.

Well she is there now.

I had given KK my starburst stencil last summer. Remember this one?

Well she finally used it to finish her daughter's room.  Finish is at the big word here because she has been wanting to do this forever and her daughter is almost 2.  

Finishing a project when you are a parent is almost as good, if not better, than taking a shower.

She went softer with gray and white,  accented with pinks and reds...

Now she is all high on life and on a "git her done" roll. 

She has sent me photos of her 1/2 bath she just striped and is now talking about doing something very cool on the walls next to her fireplace.

It is the finished project momentum effect. 

Also, she says she feels connected to the"designer" part of her that has been put on hold with kids. 

 She gets to do something for herself, even with kids clinging and screaming on her...

 it makes her happy.  

She told me "I realized I was never going to get shit done if I focused on the kid's schedule. I had to carve out little chunks for me. I just had to do it.  It's amazing what you can do if you make yourself just do it! Now if only there were two of me. Then I could lift and move all my heavy furniture."

Watch out Philly, she's gonna be hitting up the thrift stores next.

Hope you all have a productive weekend!

XO 

Danika

"You're Oversexed with Color"...

My mother just told me that, really.  She normally has a very dirty sense of humor, but I think this was her pain medication talking. (For anyone new reading, she just had her knee replaced) Regardless, it is probably true and had me laughing really hard.
We were just talking about what we should do with her bookcases, and when painting the insides came up she hesitated and resisted.  See, she can't live with much color.  (I think she birthed all of her color love to me.) She blames this on growing up in the 60's. She also can't stand anything paisley or avocado green.
She used to be quite the wild card in her younger years. She wallpapered her dorm room in tin foil and made her own artwork...

Looking like the hall monitor by day, but I found out what she did by night.

The Original Girls Gone Wild..

We had some good laughs at this one. I think her roommate is dancing the Pony.

When I first saw this pic I thought it was from Woodstock, but no.

It was the Kentucky Derby.

She was more Mod Squad than hippy...

So this got me to wondering if my color love will ever fade out. My mother doubts it. In fact this is what she thinks I'll become...

So anyone else oversexed with color?

Opening Day!!!

Ah, I finally feels like spring here. Opening Day has arrived, and I'm not talking baseball.  Here in New England on Boston's North Shore we have a little tradition called Todd's Farm Flea Market.  It opened today, to my surprise... I was thinking it was opening in a few weeks because my brain is still feeling like winter.  Anyways, I discovered this while cooking breakfast and told my kids. Their reaction is even more excited than mine...

Why and how are my kids excited to trudge through fields of mud to look at an endless  mix of great finds and random crap?

Great finds...

Mama likes.

random crap...

This is how, I know their weakness... cars. And at every flea market, junk shop, yard sale or thrift shop there is the occassional toy car.

So I make them work. Earn stars for chores. A star is worth 10 cents. They can cash them in and spend their hard earned coin when they wish, but they have learned they can get a bag full of old cars from the flea market for the same price as one new one from Toys-R-us. 

My older one has also learned charm goes along way and works an occassional freebie or two-for from the sweet old ladies.  Mom gets a clean house and gets to look at junk with out background whining, and kids get a life lesson and some crappy cars. WIN-WIN.

more family weirdness and a heads up

First off I have to wish a Happy Birthday to my wonderful husband. He puts up with so much of my nuttiness. I really don't know many men that can tolerate my crazy antics, piles of fabric and projects everywhere and never knowing what color the house will be when they come home.  I love you!

He also gets a leprechaun visit every birthday too. My mom did this for me and my sisters and we carry on the crazy tradition of leaving out a cup of milk and honey for the leprechauns. One sister has a leprechaun with a drinking problem and she leaves out whiskey...

In return the leprechauns leave little green footprints and a pot of money...

(last years visit)

This year I got lazy and opted for lousy little paint prints over carefully cut out ones. Mama leprechaun was exhausted last night and there was no green construction paper to be found. Note the can of Kilz with their drink on it next to my son's painting for them. Classy leprechaun table.

Anyone else do this?

On another note, today is the last day to enter my Zebra rug giveaway. Announcing tomorrow morning.

Also, I have been psyched that so many of you were interested in my extra fabric. A friend of mine that has a workroom contacted me about selling off some of her extras and I am so excited. I have been going through our pile and there is some seriously good stuff here. I almost want to keep some because her stuff is making me want to use it with my old stuff. I'm going to work on photographing it and try to get it up this weekend and create a "shop" tab. Here is a little peek...

Have a Happy Cornbeef and Cabbage Day!

Top 5 Reasons Why

You should enter my Zebra Rug Giveaway if. you haven't already.  Just think of the hours of entertainment, joy and bonding it can bring you and your family. You can...
1) Scare the crap out of your kids with it

2) Or crack them up. One of my kids actually likes to be scared.

3) Give Zebra Rides.  Think of all the money you can make doing birthday parties!

4) Teach your children the fine art of Zebra hunting...

And all about the delicate balance of the foodchain. The lion is king for a reason.

5) And for the tame, its quite exotic change of locale for game night.

if you haven't already, go here

Just Because

This little chunk of cuteness is my niece Molly. My sister would play dress up with her dolls

(and the family cat) endlessly as a child. She would sew costumes for her dog too

 (see below...Abbey the keg)

 Thank goodness she finally had kids.  Glad to see nothing has changed.

  Welcome to the family weirdness Molls! 

You can get your mother back when you are a teenager.

Shiny Things

This could also be titled a blast from the past.  I'm high on Christmas right now. I love this time of year.  It brings back so many happy memories, and since having kids I feel like that only intensifies that feeling. 

Every year when I unpack my ornaments there are a certain bunch I look forward to unwrapping. They are the sequined ornaments my mom made when I was a kid. I was always fascinated with them and I loved how they sparkled and shone. See... I was loving gorgeous shiny things from birth.

So I thought I'd share with you some of my favorite ornaments... they are quite vintage and well worn.

I have quite a few of these pink ones, love the ruffled sequins.
My mom had quite an attention for detail. These must have taken forever to make.

The 3 Little Bears are my absolute favorite. I was really little when my Mom made these, but I loved to open them up every year and hang them on the tree.  I actually have a special box I keep them in now so I can find them easily. They just bring back such happy memories.

 And now for some serious retro 1970's... Cue the disco.

So after decorating the tree I attempted to make some with my kids...

Thomas kind of got bored after attaching a few, it is quite time consuming.

This took me about 30 minutes and its only the size of a golf ball!

My littlest made this at a craft fair and it gave me an idea for my brood of easily bored and distracted...


I cut out shapes from cardboard and covered them in glue. They stuck shiny and bright all over them and were done in less than 5 minutes. Maybe next year our attention spans will allow us to try sequins and pins again.

 For a great DIY post on sequin ornaments check out Pear & Peacock here.



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